NGA Human Resources Art Workshop with Ysiro Elementary School

Going to San Ysyro Elementary School was difficult. Not only were the roads rough, it was far from the commercial establishments of Antipolo. Houses sprung up every once in a while, but not too often. So you could imagine the distances that San Ysyro students traverse to get a chance to learn. The difficulty to get to the location was something that the NGA CSR team recognized, as such they partnered with Team ICE and U! Happy Events to make a fun filled art activity for the kids.

It took almost 2 hours to get to the school. But upon arriving, the school’s backdrop was very picturesque – there were just hills upon hills and green pastures in sight. It was also surprisingly chilly, a sign that it’ll be a perfect day for an event.

There were almost 200 children at the back of the open court waiting for the teams to arrive. You could see in their faces how giddy they were to start. For the first activity, the kids grouped themselves into 10. Around 5 volunteers from NGA were assigned to each group. The host asked the groups to introduce themselves by saying their name, their favorite color, and their favorite celebrities. To energize the groups, a game of Bring Me Shapes had the groups forming themselves into stars, triangles, squares, trees and even roller coasters for a chance to win prizes. As everyone settled in from the energizing activity, it was time for the art activity.

The art activity was simple, but useful – a fishing game. Materials distributed to the groups were barbeque sticks (with the tips cut off), yarns, paper clips, scissors and papers drawn with fishes. The first task was to create the fishing rods. A foot length of yarn was simply tied to the barbeque stick. The paper clip was then reshaped into a hook, then yarn was tied to it. After that, the volunteers were tasked to help the children cut the fish shapes off the paper. A finger length of yarn was then tied from the fish’s mouth, knotted to create a round shape. Basically, the fish shapes would just be spread on the ground, with the fishing rod’s hook attempting to catch the fishes. You could see the joy in the children’s eyes as they try their best to hook one fish after another.

It was finally time for merienda – chicken adobo, vegetables and rice. The volunteers were asked to eat with the kids to foster more interaction. Once everyone’s done eating, it was time for gift giving. The NGA CSR Team and Team ICE had a lot of gifts to give, like school supplies, ice creams, and goodie bags. More importantly though is that they’d be giving away Crocs to the children because they saw how far these children walked just to get to school, and how damaged their current slippers were.

The event ended with a group picture and a round of hugs.Thank U! to the NGA CSR Team and Team ICE for making this event a joyous success.

Art Workshop with International Teams Tender

It was our 3rd event with the kids of IT Tender and they always make the trip to Alabang worthwhile with their warm smiles. We gathered 26 kids for an afternoon of fun and art. The U! Core Team was joined by two other volunteers who was eager to start the afternoon with a blast. The ates were given a chance to introduce themselves to the kids. We all stated our name, favorite game and favorite color. The kids also raised their hands if they had the same favorite color as their volunteer Ates. We then grouped the kids into 4 teams wherein the volunteers were distributed to act as the leaders of each team. We gave each team a chance to introduce themselves to each other. Next challenge was for them to name their teams. We have (1) Team Pabebe Kids (2) Team Attack! (3) Team Daisy and (4) Team Aldub Nation.

After having their respective team names, the teams were ready to play the games. First game was the Hula Hoop Relay where each team were to hold hands while in a straight line. The objective of the game was for everyone to pass through the hula hoop with their hands held together as a group. After several rounds of close calls and almost wins, Team Attack won this very exciting game.

Since the first game was too physical for everyone, our next game was played with each team sitting down in a circle. We usually play the Kalamansi Relay in a line but we decided to give this game a twist. With just 3 cups and 2 kalamansi per team, each team should be able to pass the kalamansi within the circle using the cups interchangeably per member until it reaches its starting point. This is a race to 3 points. We even had different challenge along the way as we lessened the number of cups into 2 since they were getting better and faster in each round. Team Aldub Nation was the fastest in this game which gave them a win.

Our main activity happened after we played the two fun games. The kids were settled already on the floor with their volunteer Ates to guide them as they learn how to make a chicken puppet. Our U! Treasurer, Ate Amy, was also our art teacher for the afternoon. She taught the kids the step by step way of making their very own chicken puppet. It was a delight to see the kids being able to follow the instructions just by looking at how Ate Amy does it. Perhaps one of the most fun part of the workshop was when they were putting the feathers to their chicken puppets. Yes, it was a mess after every workshop but to see the kids holding up their chicken puppet was truly priceless.

We then asked the kids to put away first their works of art as we, as a group, cleaned the place for our very last activity—eating time! A yummy serving of Jollibee spaghetti and drink was a great reward to the kids for the physical games and workshop we did. Picture taking followed as everyone posed while smiling, being wacky and doing the ‘pabebe wave’. We then distributed our gifts of school supplies to kids before we said goodbyes. The volunteer ates and kids also exchanged Thank Yous and hugs to cap of a lovely afternoon in Alabang.